


An Exercise in Devotion

by inwhatfurnace



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-25
Updated: 2011-03-25
Packaged: 2017-11-09 00:05:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inwhatfurnace/pseuds/inwhatfurnace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His dad sees an ad in the newspaper; a man by the name of David Anderson is selling a companion mecha for a far cheaper price than any other brand or model, used or new. The mecha will have its memory wiped before delivery, it has a customizable operating system, and is in mint condition. Sci-fi AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Exercise in Devotion

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://kurt-blaine.livejournal.com/1044448.html?thread=57209568#t57209568) over at the kurt_blaine prompt post.

Blaine sits at the kitchen table, staring at the blueprints and notebooks filled with pages upon pages of formulas that are scattered around the room.

They made him special, he was told. Unique.

His father cries at night, when he thinks Blaine isn’t listening.

-

His dad sees an ad in the newspaper; a man by the name of David Anderson is selling a companion mecha for a far cheaper price than any other brand or model, used or new. The mecha will have its memory wiped before delivery, it has a customizable operating system, and is in mint condition.

“How about it, Kurt?” His dad asks. “This way you don’t have to transfer. We’ll reprogram him to act like a bodyguard.” His dad is handy with these sorts of things, whether it’s vintage cars or source code.

Burt and Carol cancel ( _postpone_ , his dad insists) their honeymoon and Finn donates half the money he’s saved up. Kurt refuses to take more than that.

-

Kurt goes with his dad to pick up the mecha, to a house a few towns over. The man who answers the door has sunken eyes and a hollow face, Kurt can tell he’s been crying.

“Come in,” Mr. Anderson leads them into the kitchen, where a boy – no, a mecha, Kurt realizes, staring at the flower bud ears – is sitting at the table, motionless, his eyes closed. Kurt can tell that endless amounts of care have gone into his creation; the mecha is obviously a custom job. “That’s Blaine. I wiped his memory and shut him down, but I’d like it if you kept his name. That’s up to you, of course.”

There is an exchange of money and a shaking of hands, and Burt carries Blaine out to the car.

“Was he your son?” Kurt lingers in the kitchen doorway, and Mr. Anderson hides his face in his hands.  
“A replacement. My boy has been gone for years now.”

-

Blaine starts up with a hum, lines of code running across his half-open eyes.  
“That should do it.” His dad says with a smile, and heads for the door. “I added a protective protocol to his regular companion OS. He should be fully charged in an hour or so.”

Blaine’s right ear hides a power cord, the left a USB port. Blaine is plugged into the wall and into Kurt’s laptop, and Kurt watches his new mecha for that entire hour, sitting cross-legged across from Blaine on the floor of his room.

When Blaine’s eyes open fully, he lifts his head and smiles at Kurt.  
“Um. Hi. I’m Kurt.” He holds out his hand. “Do you know your name?”  
“I’m Blaine.” The mecha answers, and takes Kurt’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Kurt.”  
“And your directive?”  
“Directive.” Blaine echoes, expression blank. “Four Laws compliant. Protective protocol added: Kurt Hummel on highest priority.” Blaine smiles again. “That’s you.”

-

“He’s kinda short for a bodyguard, isn’t he?” Finn observes at dinner that night. Blaine has his own seat, but his plate and glass are empty.  
“He’ll be just fine.” Burt replies, glancing over at his son. “Take him to school tomorrow for a test drive, okay? I’ve already cleared him with Figgins.”  
“I’m sure he’ll do his job very well.” Carol agrees.

Kurt smiles at Blaine, who, after a slight pause, smiles back.

-

Word that Kurt Hummel has a mecha bodyguard spreads through McKinley within a matter of hours of him walking through the door. He still catches Karofsky watching him, but Blaine never leaves his side, and that seems to be enough to keep the football player at bay.

-

One night, while Kurt is doing his English homework, Blaine turns the radio on. Kurt looks up and smiles as Blaine flips through the stations, cocking his head to the side every time a new song blasts from the speakers.

“You like music, don’t you? You always seem happy during glee club practice.”  
Blaine looks up and smiles.  
“Yes. I like music.” He agrees, finally settling on a station. A female voice fills the room, and Kurt laughs.

“You like the oldies? I don’t think even my dad listened to Katy Perry.”

Kurt turns back to his homework, but stops when he hears a low voice harmonizing with the radio. He turns to find Blaine sitting on his bed, eyes closed, singing along.

-

“Kurt, he’s _gorgeous_.” Mercedes is sitting on the couch next to Blaine, their math homework that’s due tomorrow completely abandoned.  
“Is he?” Kurt bites the end of his pencil and stares out the window. “I guess I just think of him as another mecha.”  
“Are you serious? If it weren’t for his ears, I’d think he was human. Where does he sleep?”  
“He doesn’t, but I make him lay on the air mattress in my room anyway. It’s creepy otherwise. I had to buy him new clothes too. Do you think he needs a haircut?”

-

“Are there a lot of other mecha around here?”

Kurt and Blaine are doing the dishes after dinner. It’s the first question Blaine has ever asked that didn’t have to do with Kurt’s well-being.

“No, not really.” Kurt replies, handing Blaine another dish to dry. “I mean, there are a few, but I’ve heard that in big cities, there are hundreds of them. They have mecha for everything these days.”  
“Everything?”  
“Well, there are teacher mecha, like Coach Sylvester, all kinds of housekeeping mecha, and mecha that work in factories. They tend to make kinds that make human lives easier.”

“Do I make your life easier?”

Kurt turns to Blaine, whose expression is strangely serious.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’ve made it better.”

Blaine nods, a small, quiet smile on his face. They finish the dishes in silence.

-

Blaine turns on the radio whenever he’s in Kurt’s room, and he seems to know every song that the oldies station plays. When Kurt finally recognizes one, he sings along too, and watches as delighted surprise lights up Blaine’s face.

It’s that night that he wakes up to find Blaine in his bed, eyes closed and breathing deep and regular.

Their fingers are laced together.

-

Kurt takes Blaine to Sam’s house, more than a little terrified.

“He told me he was lonely.” He paces around Sam’s bedroom, running his hands through his hair. “Do mecha even know what lonely is?”

“Calm down.” Sam has shut down Blaine and has plugged him into his own laptop. “I’m gonna take a look at his code, ok?”  
“Thank god you know how these things work, Sam.”

The sound of Sam’s furious typing fills the room, until:

“Holy shit.”  
“What? Holy shit what?” Kurt stares at Sam’s computer screen, and frowns in frustration at the code that fills the screen. “That means nothing to me.”  
“Dude. Your mecha isn’t operating off of his companion OS at all.”  
“What?”  
“It looks like he knows it’s there, but there’s something really weird going on – he’s calling up the companion and bodyguard code, but he’s running an OS I don’t recognize at all.”

Kurt feels like crying. Of course he would get the sentient mecha that can hijack its own programming. Of course.

“How come my dad didn’t see it?”  
“It’s buried deep in his code. I had to go digging for it. Whoever programmed him didn’t expect anyone to ever find this.” Sam begins typing again, and then whistles, impressed. “Okay. I think I know what’s going on. It looks like Blaine has an advanced affection protocol, which is what you’ve been seeing. It just makes him a little more touchy-feely, it’s probably affected the bodyguard protocol your dad added. But this new program is way too advanced for me. It could take months to crack this, but I can start – ”

“No. Leave it.” Kurt sits down next to Blaine on Sam’s bed, and presses the heel of his hand into his forehead. “I need to go talk to his dad.”

-

David Anderson looks just as terrible as he did the day they picked up Blaine. Kurt has brought Mercedes for backup, not entirely comfortable with the idea of visiting Mr. Anderson alone.

“I know about his programming.” Kurt decides there’s no use in dancing around the situation. Mr. Anderson sighs, and motions for them to follow him.  
“Blaine is completely harmless. He just has a little more…free will than other mechas.”

He leads them into the living room, where an empty bird cage sits in the corner, next to a row of photographs.

“I lost my son when he was your age,” Mr. Anderson picks up one of the photos, and hands it to Kurt. There’s Blaine, in a private school uniform, beaming at the camera. Kurt can only think about how strange he looks with human ears. “My wife left me after the funeral. I was alone in this house with my son’s songbirds.”  
“You thought you could replace him.” Mercedes says, and Mr. Anderson nods.  
“I needed him to be a real boy. And he almost was. He called me dad; he took care of the birds. But it wasn’t the same. My boy would have been angry, would have demanded to see his mother. That Blaine did none of those things. I couldn’t stand it. I had his memory wiped and sold him.” He bites his lip, and takes the photograph back from Kurt.

“He’s in the car,” Kurt says. “Would you like to see him?”

“No.”

-

“He’s pretty attached to you.” Finn smiles at Blaine as he walks into the kitchen, and takes a seat at the table. It’s Kurt’s turn to cook dinner, and Blaine is busy chopping vegetables.

“You think so?” Kurt pours two boxes of pasta into a pot of boiling water. “He’s just doing what he was programmed to.”  
“C’mon, Kurt. I’ve seen him holding your hand when he walks you to class.”

Kurt shrugs, and takes the cutting board and knife from Blaine.

“He’s supposed to keep an eye on me. It’s the easiest way.”

-

Blaine’s smiles just get warmer ( _they’re reaching his eyes_ ) and he gives them away more and more often. He keeps sneaking into Kurt’s bed at night, regardless of what Kurt tells him before he goes to sleep.

Kurt is almost out of excuses to dodge Finn’s questions, and he’s sure his dad is more than a little suspicious. Sam has had no luck with cracking Blaine’s custom OS, and Kurt is positive that means he’ll become one of those creepy mecha people, the kind that prefer metal and code to blood and emotion. Because he’s starting know how those people must feel.

“You can stop pretending.” Kurt tells Blaine one day, sitting on the floor of his room and motioning for Blaine to join him. “I know you’re a lot more than you’re letting on.”

Blaine tilts his head up and watches Kurt’s face carefully.

“I like you a lot.”  
“This is so weird.”

Kurt inhales sharply when Blaine moves even closer and rests his forehead against his own, and screws his eyes shut when Blaine’s hands find his.

“What am I gonna do with you?”  
“Whatever you want.”

-

Blaine is a mecha, nothing more than titanium, some circuits and a positronic brain covered by synthetic skin and hair, but he’s Kurt’s.

And that will have to be enough.


End file.
